Impressive as _Cléopatre_ is in its scenic and pantomimic vigor and tragic atmosphere, yet it is hardly a ballet in the modern sense. There is no unity of music, this being altogether a patch-work. It may sound exceedingly pretty and appropriate occasionally to the accompaniment of the mute drama, yet it is by no means dance music. This is an example of the patchy ballet music that the Diaghileff company is continually trying to employ. Musically less patchy is _Le Pavillon d’Armide_, with music by Tcherepnin and setting by Benois. But the theme is old-fashioned and over-perfumed. The story takes place in mediæval France at the castle of a certain Marquis, a magician. It is night. Winds blow, rain pours down and thunder rolls. A nobleman is to meet his sweetheart near the Marquis’ castle and takes refuge from the bad weather. The Marquis places his _Pavillon d’Armide_ at his disposal. In the pavilion he sees an old Gobelin tapestry representing the beautiful Armide, beneath it, a great clock supported by Love and Time. The nobleman goes to sleep and at midnight sees the figures of Love and Time step down from the clock. Armide becomes alive. The nobleman falls in love with her and Armide embraces him. This is the beginning of an animated dance. It is a fantastic scene, the old Marquis taking part in the feast. Finally Time triumphs over Love and they return to their places. It is an interesting short phantasy, a poem in pantomime. A ballet which has created the greatest comment and discussion in its dramatic and scenic beauty is the _Scheherezade_, with music by Rimsky-Korsakoff. This is a symphonic suite of which Bakst and Fokine have manufactured a kind of pantomime-ballet. Though the music is magnificent as an orchestra piece by itself, yet it is a perversion to employ it to accompany a queer pantomimic drama. Rimsky-Korsakoff had no idea of a Zobeide played by Karsavina, of her negro lover, danced by Nijinsky, of Schariar, the Grand Eunuch, and of the Odalisque, who are the characters of the ballet. This again is a patch-work and not a dance in its real sense. If it is a dance, it is such that only one artist or at most two could depict. According to the scenario writers it draws the story of a Sultan’s harem from ‘The Arabian Nights.’ All the harem beauties are dancing with their lovers and slaves. Among them we find the pretty Sultana. The Sultan enters and suspects that Zobeida has betrayed him. He finds her lover. We see death and passion. It is picturesque, but the dance is only an incidental affair. _Scheherezade_ without Karsavina’s vivid mimicry and youthful beauty, and Nijinsky’s agility, would be nothing. In the words of a Russian critic, ‘Nijinsky makes us understand that a gesture is, as Blake said of a tear, an intellectual thing. His gestures, by which I do not mean the technical steps, are different in manner and in spirit from those of the traditional Italian school. With the conventional gestures of the